“Linda,” I said, waiting for her to look at me. “We’ll be released from this little Guantanamo Bay soon.” Our eyes met and I saw a flash of understanding.
“I know, it’ll be stunning,” she said – she’d remembered our telephone call. She stood up with Derin clasping her elbow.
“Go with him,” Badem said, tapping Leonard’s knee. “I need to speak to George alone about this text from whoever Chris is.”
Derin, fury burning his face, let go of Linda and stepped forward, slightly in front of me to my right. He was shouting at his uncle and Leonard was watching him, smiling.
It was now or never – both of them accompanying Linda would make going for the Taser impossible. I grabbed the seat of the chair with my hands and got to my feet. Hunched double by the chair, I kept going. In my peripheral vision I glimpsed Linda making for the door as I crashed into Derin’s hip with my right shoulder. Derin, who’d been working on his upper body strength and neglecting his legs, went down onto the coffee table. Leonard spotted Linda exiting the room and jumped to his feet, trying to step over Derin who was flailing for his knife which he’d thankfully lost. I tried to get up but had ended up on my side. Leonard disappeared from view but I heard the familiar buzzing and a guttural grunt. I heard him go to ground. Derin, knife retrieved, came for me on hands and knees, blind to Linda who appeared behind him. She stood, legs astride his, mouth set in grim determination. Badem – who had somehow extradited himself from the sofa – shouted a warning, but it was too late as Linda bent over and applied the Taser to the back of his sweaty shaved head. She kept it pressed there until I had to yell at her to stop.
Badem must have moved fairly quickly because I only realised he was gone by the sound of the front door closing. Released by Linda from the chair, I recovered Derin’s knife and with Linda wielding the Taser I got Derin and Leonard back to back on the floor and tied the cargo strap too tight around both of them. Linda handed me the Taser. She looked pale.
“You OK?” I asked.
“I’m getting dressed,” she said, avoiding my eyes. Derin started swearing so I retrieved the duct tape in the kitchen that Leonard had used on Linda’s wrists and used it over both their mouths.
I closed the door on them and called Sandra from the landline.
“Where the hell have you been?” she shouted. “What the hell was that text you sent?”
“I’ll explain later. Stubbing wants to talk to Aurora, do you think she’d be up to it?”
“If Stubbing can pretend to be human.”
“Can you wait at the office?”
“We’re already here. Came here when you didn’t turn up. What happened?”
“Later. Listen, any chance you can find out where Iskender Badem lives?”
“Sure. I’ll text you the info.”
Next I rang Stubbing and told her to come to the house.
“You got that statement for me?”
“I’ve got more than that, I’ve got the recently released Lenny and his friend trussed up in my living room. They were both carrying weapons.” The Taser was Leonard’s, after all, even if he hadn’t brought it with him. I hung up before she asked questions. Linda, dressed, holding her overnight bag, was waiting for me to come off the phone.
“You’re leaving?” I asked.
She nodded. She was trembling.
“Linda, I’m sorry this happened.” I reached for her but she moved away to the door.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“Any chance you can keep me out of this… mess?”
“I’ll try my best.”
She opened the door and stepped out, taking a deep breath. She pulled the door closed behind her without looking at me and I was left with the hollow feeling it was the last time she would come to the house.
* * *
I gently rubbed my sore sideburns as I sat with Stubbing at my dining-room table. Derin and Leonard had been handcuffed and removed by uniformed officers, much to the excitement of the neighbours. There was no car or van outside so I assumed they must have been dropped off with me and Badem had arrived separately. Stubbing wrote down my version of events. Basically I told her that they’d come to the house looking for Aurora. I didn’t mention Badem because I had unfinished business with him, and I didn’t mention Linda because she didn’t want me to. My story contained holes large enough to drive a tank through, the least of which was how I’d overpowered two armed men on my own. But the odd thing was that Stubbing didn’t seem to care, or was distracted. She just nodded and wrote it all down.
“Aurora might be willing to talk to you about Bogdana,” I said, when finished. “She’s waiting at my office.”
“Bogdana’s not my case any more,” she said, shrugging.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I met with my DCI and went through the reasons why I should talk to Kristina Galbraith. He decided that, given who she’s married to, he should do it, because I’m obviously not to be trusted to handle it sensitively.”
“He said that?”
“Not exactly, but what other reason could there be? You said the same yourself.” I preferred any Stubbing to a self-pitying one but let it ride.
“And?”
“I’ve been told to abandon any line of enquiry regarding the Galbraiths. Seems they’re untouchable. For the moment, anyway.”
“But the pearls, the antenna, the picture of Bogdana at the salon?” She picked up the king from the chessboard. I made a mental note of its position.
“The DCI had a chat with Mrs Galbraith. I wasn’t present. She told him she scraped her car at the multi-storey in town trying to park in one of the low spots.”
“And what about the antenna?”
“It doesn’t matter, George. She’s got an alibi for the night in question.”
“What alibi?”
“She was with someone apparently. It’s sensitive, so I assume she’s having an affair.”
A horrible thought had struck me. “Who was she with?” I asked, moving round to the computer.
“I don’t know, but my boss says he personally checked the alibi and it seems kosher. She left after dinner on the night and didn’t get back for hours. The parking ticket just confirms it.”
“This is all coming from your DCI, is it?” I asked, printing off the sheet I’d used to blackmail Kristina with.
“What is that? Is there something else you haven’t told me?”
“He’s not Asian, is he, your boss?”
“No, what you on about?”
“I happen to know that Mrs Galbraith is seeing someone who works at the station. I saw him this morning in fact when I was waiting for you.”
Stubbing’s jaw actually dropped.
50
STUBBING PUT THE CHESS PIECE DOWN NEXT TO THE BOARD. I gave her the printout showing Kristina and her lover getting intimate.
“Those were taken at the Galbraith house,” I said.
“I’m not even going to ask why you have these,” she said, studying the pictures. “He’s not police.”
“Management?”
“No. He’s not based at the factory but visits regularly.”
“Who is he?”
She stared at the photos and shook her head as if I hadn’t spoken. “This explains a lot. My boss would have spoken to him after she’d told him who she’d been with.”
“Are you going to tell me what you’re on about?”
She looked up at me. “You have to keep this to yourself, George.”
“Come on, Vicky, you can’t doubt my discretion.”
“He’s a senior lawyer in the Cambridgeshire Crown Prosecution Service.”
I stood up. She, however, seemed to have slumped into the seat.
“This was in her house?” she asked, waving the sheet.
“Yep, just last week. His DNA will be everywhere.”
“Jesus. This is the lawyer who’d decide whether any case against the Galbraiths is worth prosecuting or not.”
“You think he’s the alibi?”
“He must be.”
She bent over and spoke to the floor. “I mean I can see why my boss wants me to back away from this. The embarrassment factor alone would make him cautious. She’s married to a high-profile guy – the tabloids would have a field day. But I can’t see him inventing alibis, or just taking this guy’s word for it. That’s a step too far and career suicide. It would explain what he said about needing more time or having something more tangible. He has to refer this upwards, to see how they would handle the fallout. They’d probably need to sort things out in the CPS before the shit hit the fan, get this guy recused or whatever they call it.”
“The parking ticket proves that she parked at the station,” I said.
She clicked her fingers. “I remember speaking to this guy while we were parking our bikes up outside the factory. He told me he lived near the railway station, in one of those new flats springing up everywhere. And the ticket doesn’t prove she stayed there all that time, only that she parked there.”
“You’re right, there’s no barrier to record comings and goings, it’s a pay-and-display car park,” I said.
“It’s back to Kristina and her lover’s word against Aurora’s. Guess who’ll win that face-off?”
“OK. Assuming the alibi is legit the focus should be on Bill, right? Something happened to Bogdana in that house involving the pearl necklace.” I studied her for a reaction. “Did you find a pearl in her clothing or not?”
She nodded imperceptibly, still focussed on the floor.
“How did she die exactly?” I asked, thinking he might have strangled her with them.
She looked up at me, deciding what to tell me. “Blow to the head.” She touched her left temple.
“Was she raped?”
She shook her head.
“So what now? You can’t just leave it like this. You and I both know he is likely Bogdana’s killer.”
“Likely isn’t going to cut it. The CPS are going to apply the full evidence test to this one, and they’re going to want to see the evidence, not just take what the police tell them at face value, which is what usually happens.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“What I’m told, of course, what else? Short of Galbraith confessing or a real witness coming forward I’m going to focus on the woman who jumped into the path of an eighteen-wheeler and get to the bottom of why this low-life Leonard was driving Filipino women around. I’m working on the theory, and I’m hoping Aurora’s statement will bear this out, that there’s some sort of trafficking going on.”
I remembered the house in the Fens. The police needed to get to it before Badem moved the women. “He was delivering them to a house out in the Fens. Let me get you the address. There might be other women there.”
“For fuck’s sake, George.”
I found my notebook in my jacket and she rang the Fenland cops. I took the opportunity to put the king back on his correct square.
“Anything else you haven’t told me?” she asked, when she’d finished.
“This is all in Aurora’s statement and like I said, she’s in my office waiting to speak to you. But Bogdana is connected to this somehow, since it looks like she was lured to work here. If that is Bogdana in the photo at Kristina’s salon, then there’s a good chance the rest of the women working there are also working illegally. Mrs Galbraith has form in that regard, it’s in the public record.” Of course I knew they were illegal from what Badem had said, not to mention Kristina herself.
She nodded wearily. “I’ll go and read Aurora’s statement and speak to her.” She waved the sheet. “Can I keep this? It might come in useful.”
“Don’t see why not, although it didn’t come from me.” She folded it, stood up and put it in her jacket.
“As for what happened here…” She shook her head.
With Stubbing gone I stared at the chess problem without seeing it. I was working under the assumption that something had happened to Bogdana at the Galbraiths’ house and Bill had decided to get rid of her body using his wife’s car, or even perhaps with her help. The Porsche didn’t have much of a boot so it would make sense. Plus it was far too conspicuous, whereas Range Rovers in Cambridge are two a penny. How to prove it happened though? I was too tired to get any further; too much had happened too quickly. The pain in my shoulder, which had been gradually subsiding after the injury sustained in the pub car park when first meeting Leonard and Derin, had now returned after colliding with Derin. Something was bothering me on my neck, like an insect bite. I went to the mirror and took stock. A new contusion on the side of my head where I’d been punched, and a red mark the size of a five-pence piece on my neck, with a puncture wound in the middle, just like an insect bite. Had the bastards injected me with something? It would explain being out for so long and the dreamlike nature of what had happened when I woke up, events I still couldn’t quite believe. Linda had been amazing, and probably saved me from being knifed. I hadn’t even thanked her. When she’d left she’d looked in shock. But it was Chris’s text that had saved us both. I found the phone and scrolled up to the message – Your hunch about Badem op was on the money. Have emailed theatre records. At the computer, I found it and printed it off. Bill Galbraith had not been in the operating room.
I grabbed a beer from the fridge. I was starving, but all I could find was a chunk of dry cracked cheddar which I nibbled at. The mobile phone, which was charging in the hall, beeped. A message from Sandra.
cant call cause stubbing here but badem called me!!?? He must have kept the sheet of paper he wrote Sandra’s number on. wants to meet you asap. She’d provided a Cambridge number. I rang it.
“Efes, can I help you?” an English female voice said. Efes was a Turkish restaurant on King Street. The real deal, not one of these all-encompassing “Mediterranean” places.
“Erm, can I speak to Iskender Badem, please?”
“Just one moment,” she said, seemingly unfazed by my request. The place didn’t sound busy but it was Monday night. There was a delay as either Badem made his way to the phone or the phone was taken to him.
“Mr Kocharyan.” Badem sounded confident, even chipper.
“Mr Badem. Can we meet?”
“Have you eaten?”
“I’m not hungry.” No spoon was long enough to sup with Badem.
“Leonard and Derin are in custody?”
“Yes.”
“But interestingly, I’m not.”
“We have unfinished business,” I said.
“Yes, that we do.”
“You’ve been misled,” I said.
“You said something about Bill lying to me?”
“In fact they’ve both been lying to you.”
“You can prove it?” he asked.
“Yes, but I think we should give them a chance to explain themselves. Shall we go and see them?”
51
I’D AGREED TO MEET BADEM AT THE GALBRAITHS’ HOUSE (he’d ring them to say he was going over) but arrived early, standing in the Weasel and Stoat pub garden in Fulbourn where I could see the gate to The Willows, trying to calm my nerves at what was to come and resisting the temptation for Dutch courage. I held a large folder to my chest. Inside was a copy of Kristina and her lover’s photos, a printout of the operation sheet from the theatre system Chris had emailed and some printouts from the Argus website, since I’d left my copy at the office, along with my car. I was early because I assumed Badem must have other Leonards and Derins he could call on – at least three people got me into the back of that van. But he turned up solo, in a taxi. Not wanting to give him too much time with the Galbraiths I walked quickly up to the house, slipping through the already closing gate and catching up with him as he lumbered up the drive. An open bottle of spirits was clutched in his right hand.
“We might need it,” he said, breathing charcoaled lamb into my face.
Kristina was waiting at the open front door in a zippere
d jumpsuit and headband, like she’d stepped out of an eighties pop video. She looked puzzled when she caught sight of me but didn’t say anything. She glanced at the folder in my hand.
“He’s been drinking,” she said as we entered the white hall. We followed her up the stairs, me behind Badem who was wheezing with the effort. I took the opportunity to take out my fully charged phone, which I’d set to silent, and dial Stubbing’s number. As agreed she didn’t speak, and I put the phone back into my jacket pocket, microphone facing out.
Misha, oddly subdued, waited at the top of the stairs. He padded to the sofa in front of Kristina. Bill leant in the doorway to his study, an iced amber drink in hand. Unshaven, red-eyed, in a torso-hugging T-shirt that showed off his flat stomach, he stood barefoot in carefully ripped jeans. His grin was loose, his eyes shiny.
“Ah, good,” he said. “Someone to drink with.” He didn’t slur, just spoke louder.
He gestured expansively to the armchairs. I sat opposite Kristina on the backless leather cube while Badem opted for something more comfortable at right angles to me.
“I brought raki,” Badem said, putting the bottle down. “The good stuff, the Altınbaş.” Bill went to a cabinet and came back towards the sofa quite deliberately, the way drunk people do, like they’re walking on a narrow ledge. He had four fingers stuck in four glasses and a bottled water, chilled. Kristina flinched as he banged them on the table and sat down too quickly beside her, Misha darting out of his way onto her lap. He poured raki and splashed water into the glasses, turning the contents milky. He handed me a glass, then Badem, then offered one to Kristina, who declined. He shrugged and raised it, held it there until Badem and I raised ours. We drank – rather Badem and Bill drank; I took a sip and put it down. A sip was enough to burn my empty stomach.
Kristina sat upright, poised, turned slightly towards her husband. He took her hand. They seemed to want to project a united front, despite whatever was coming. I was almost looking forward to it.
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